It's the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and along with it the beginning of fall winter season that literally doesn't stop until the new year.

For me, Thanksgiving means friends, family, fun, food and more food! It seems like most of our holiday celebrations revolve around food and at least at Thanksgiving that seems to make sense to me. I'm not always sure that's a good thing but I really enjoy all that the harvest and Thanksgiving traditions bring together.

Thanksgiving growing up always involved my mom cooking a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings, followed of course by the pumpkin and or apple pies. Being the lover of traditions that I am I have not strayed too far from my childhood Thanksgiving routine, although I have definitely tweaked and changed some of the recipes I use.

Last year I came across a recipe on Pinterest for a GingerSnap Pumpkin Pie. This seemed like a no-brainer for me to try as it's the combination of two of my fall favorites. I decided to give it a try as my Thanksgiving dessert. It was a huge hit! and thus a new tradition was born.

This year as I sat down to prepare my menu and shopping list I knew that this would be my dessert of choice once again. Having made this dessert before I recalled that I wanted to change a couple of things so I have brought you along with me as I made my version of a GingerSnap Crust Pumpkin Pie.

Crust

Start off by preparing and baking the crust. As I mentioned, I found this recipe on freutcake.com and have adapted it slightly.

whisk together 1 cup brown sugar, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/8 tsp cloves. I tried to short cut my recipe by purchasing a can of pumpkin pie filling, but I was not happy with the spice level so I ended up adding the spices anyway... shortcut fail :(

Now whisk in the 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin, the 2 beaten eggs, and the 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk.

Pour this into your cooled pie crust. Note: there was way more filling here than I had crust and I ended up burying my crust. So again, I would try to make more crust mixture next time.

Into the oven it goes for about 40-45 min. As the baking end time approaches keep an eye on your pie to make sure your filling is set in the center but not too dark around the edges.

Cool on a cookie cooling rack.

Topping

This last step is not necessary but really adds a finishing touch and flavor to this yummy pie.